There was something I noticed about Salman Butt's 3 innings in the ongoing Pentangular Trophy:

290 (318) - 50 Fours

72 (96) - 13 Fours

117 (157) - 18 Fours

In the 3 innings, he got 69%, 72%, and 61% of his runs through 4s - a collective amount of 68%.

Thats quite a high percentage. I checked his international record and this is how that looks:

ODIs - 52.9% runs from 4s

Tests - 58.5% runs from 4s

Typically in test matches one would expect that the good batsmen get majority of their runs through boundaries, however in ODIs the percentage is usually lower considering the sharp singles, 2s, and 3s. Salman Butt gets a very high percentage of runs in boundaries in ODIs as well.

I then went on to compare these percentages with other international greats. I couldn't find a database that lists the batsmen in order of highest percentage of runs from 4s, however I did find many that list the batsmen with the most number of 4s in their careers. Maybe David Barry or Charles Davis can come up with the accurate database to be used or they may have already, but here's my list:

NOTE 1: 6s not taken into account; only 4s

NOTE 2: List of batsmen with highest number of 4s in career sorted by highest percentage of runs through 4s

What surprises me is that 2 wicketkeepers top each of the lists. Adam Gilchrist can be expected to be at the top, but Alec Stewart? Does anyone even remember him?

I know this not an accurate reflection so I randomly picked some players whom I thought would have a high percentage of runs in boundaries. Here's what I found:

Considering these, Salman Butts 58.5% in test matches is not as remarkable as his 52.9% in ODIs. Virender Sehwag was the only other batsman I found who scores more than half his runs in boundaries (excluding 6s) in ODIs. Even Salman's 58.5% is on the very high side when looking at the other percentages above.

More runs through boundaries in ODIs could also be termed as a weakness of not taking the quick singles or converting 1s into 2s and 2s into 3s, which probably explains why the Australians (apart from Gilchrist) have low perentages of runs in 4s - Hayden (41%), Ponting (35%), Symonds (35%), M. Clarke (34%), MEK Hussey (32%).

This fact about Salman Butt was just an observation that led me to do this post - maybe I've missed out some big 4 hitters in these lists, but if Salman can go on to become even half as good as the names above, Pakistan wouldn't have to worry about who to open their innings with.

Who else comes to your mind when you think of batsmen who seem to hit a 4 of every ball?

That will be an interesting analysis SB, will take me some time to do that though. However, if you take a look at the top 10 batsmen in terms of most 4s in a career in ODIs - 6 of them are openers with the rest (Lara, Dravid, Inzy, Ponting) being those who have either opened or played at 3 for a good part of their career.

For late order batsmen I would think their % would be on the higher side. But I will run a check.

Salman's 290 was his highest ever first class score and he did it against an attack that included Shoaib Akhtar, Sohail Tanvir, and Yasir Arafat. It is definitely a good boost but its only up to him to translate this into international form. Butt is a product of the age-group cricket - he's come through U-15s, U-17s, and U-19s and captained all of those teams. He was the most talented out of the lot of his time in those age groups. He's a hard worker but he hasn't been as successful thus far as he was expected to be.

SP - That has been the problem with all the opening bats Pakistan has tried in the last half a decade - Imran Nazir, Imran Farhat, Yasir Hameed - the offside play was their strength as well as their weakness.

If u note, all these players along with Salman have flowing drives and cuts but thatalso makes them fallable in the slips and gullies. What they all lack is making the choice of ball outside off to drive / cut.

If either them could buckle down to applying themselves more they would have been good for Pak. Hopefully Salman will come through.

Great analysis and some interesting findings. I think size of the boundary is an important factor. It would also be interesting to see how many boundaries were hit with the fielding restrictions and how many without.

For me a more telling stat would be percentage of boundaries hit based on deliveries faced.

Apologise for butting in, to answer your question, "Who else comes to your mind when you think of batsmen who seem to hit a 4 of every ball?" I would say Muralitharan. He is one who seems to hit a 4 of every ball but rarely connects.

Yeah thats right NAzhar. Against India he got to 50s several times and easily but then fell to Kumble.

He's a hard worker though from what I hear from some people who play in Model Town in Lahore with him - he practices against spin on the grass in the outfield - hopefully that practice will come to use soon.

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